At its annual sellers’ conference, hosted in Seattle this week, Amazon continually told the thousands of independent vendors in attendance that Amazon saw them as partners. Doug Herrington, head of Amazon’s worldwide stores division, told sellers they were a critical part of the “Amazon magic.”

Amazon is launching a new AI-powered selling assistant code-named “Project Amelia” to help sellers navigate the nuances of e-commerce, using generative artificial intelligence to answer questions and provide guidance.

Amazon.com announced on Thursday a new artificial intelligence application that it says will help its independent sellers with sales metrics, inventory maintenance and product advertising, among other things.